It's fairly obvious the route their going is the Sulaco getting picked up and Newt and Hicks and Ripley going there merry way before something happens decades later that calls their attention to Weyland-Yutani's capture of some specimens, and Ripley and Hicks break into a secure facility as is with the past two films of his (MNU - Elysium) and action happens.

I have no idea, in earth or heaven, what kind of colonial marines mind/retcon games are going to fit an older Hicks and Ripley in the continuity of Alien 3 and 4 without considering Alien 3 and Resurrection a separate string of events unrelated. Or just Alien 3. Whichever, whoever prefers.

In my recent previous post, the idea of reshuffled order of events happening in the movie series would have allowed much more impact of the Fury161 storyline, since it would have been Alien2 instead, and also allowed Newt, Hicks, and maybe even a few other characters to survive later on. Aliens would then have been the THIRD film in the saga. That would have left another movie starring Newt & Hicks wide open, because I agree that is sucked to see them survive the hell on LV426, only to die at the beginning of A3. That chronological order of events would also have kept the storyline of Alien Resurrection, where 200 years later scientists get hold of Ripley's blood on Fury161, completely intact. A simple reshuffling would have worked wonders, and made more people happy, in my opinion.

I just finally saw District 9 last week, and I'm hard-pressed to think of a shot in the movie that was more than three seconds long. I've heard people say that Elysium was "boring"; can I take that to mean that Blomkamp is at least capable of making a film that 'breathes' a little more? Like, you know... an Alien film?

The point is that was a stand-alone film, and we haven't seen how Blomkamp exactly behaves when making a sequel to a third party, estabilished property. Also, both Alien and Aliens have their quick cuts when they need to.